Lust for Life

“I’m taking only one grip with me, Madame Loyer,” he said. “I shall leave everything in my room just as it is. Here is the money for the two weeks that I shall be away.”

“I think you had better take all your things with you, Monsieur Van Gogh,” said Madame.

“But why?”

“Your room is rented from Monday morning. We think it better if you live elsewhere.”

“We?”

He turned and looked at Ursula from under the deep ridge of brow. That look made no statement. It only asked a question.

“Yes, we,” replied her mother. “My daughter’s fiancé has written that he wants you out of the house. I’m afraid, Monsieur Van Gogh, that it would have been better if you had never come here at all.”

5

THEODORUS VAN GOGH met his son at the Breda station with a carriage. He had on his heavy, black ministerial coat, the wide lapelled vest, starched white shirt, and huge black bow tie covering all but a narrow strip of the high collar. With a quick glance Vincent took in his father’s two facial characteristics: the right lid drooped down lower than the left, covering a considerable portion of the eye; the left side of his mouth was a thin, taut line, the right side full and sensuous. His eyes were passive; their expression simply said, “This is me.”

The people of Zundert often remarked that the dominie Theodorus went about doing good with a high silk hat on.

He never understood to the day of his death why he was not more successful. He felt that he should have been called to an important pulpit in Amsterdam or The Hague years before. He was called the handsome dominie by his parishioners, was well educated, of a loving nature, had fine spiritual qualities, and was indefatigable in the service of God. Yet for twenty-five years he had been buried and forgotten in the little village of Zundert. He was the only one of the six Van Gogh brothers who had not achieved national importance.

The parsonage at Zundert, where Vincent had been born, was a wooden frame building across the road from the market place and stadhuis. There was a garden back of the kitchen with acacias and a number of little paths running through the carefully tended flowers. The church was a tiny wooden building hidden in the trees just behind the garden. There were two small Gothic windows of plain glass on either side, perhaps a dozen hard benches on the wooden floor, and a number of warming pans attached permanently to the planks. At the rear there was a stairway leading up to an old hand organ. It was a severe and simple place of worship, dominated by the spirit of Calvin and his reformation.

Vincent’s mother, Anna Cornelia, was watching from the front window and had the door open before the carriage came to a full stop. Even while taking him with loving tenderness to her ample bosom, she perceived that something was wrong with her boy.

“Myn lieve zoon,” she murmured. “My Vincent.”

Her eyes, now blue, now green, were always wide open, gently inquiring, seeing through a person without judging too harshly. A faint line from the side of each nostril down to the corners of the mouth deepened with the passage of the years, and the deeper these lines became, the stronger impression they gave of a face slightly lifted in smile.

Anna Cornelia Carbentus was from The Hague, where her father carried the title of “Bookbinder to the King.” William Carbentus’s business flourished and when he was chosen to bind the first Constitution of Holland he became known throughout the country. His daughters, one of whom married Uncle Vincent Van Gogh, and a third the well known Reverend Stricker of Amsterdam, were bien élevées.

Anna Cornelia was a good woman. She saw no evil in the world and knew of none. She knew only of weakness, temptation, hardship, and pain. Theodorus Van Gogh was also a good man, but he understood evil very thoroughly and condemned every last vestige of it.

The dining room was the centre of the Van Gogh house, and the big table, after the supper dishes had been cleared off, the centre of family life. Here everyone gathered about the friendly oil lamp to pass the evening. Anna Cornelia was worried about Vincent; he was thin, and had become jumpy in his mannerisms.

“Is anything wrong, Vincent?” she asked after supper that night. “You don’t look well to me.”

Vincent glanced about the table where Anna, Elizabeth, and Willemien, three strange young girls who happened to be his sisters, were sitting.

“No,” he said, “nothing is wrong.”

“Do you find London agreeable?” asked Theodorus. “If you don’t like it I’ll speak to your Uncle Vincent. I think he would transfer you to one of the Paris shops.”

Vincent became very agitated. “No, no, you mustn’t do that!” he exclaimed. “I don’t want to leave London, I . . .” He quieted himself. “When Uncle Vincent wants to transfer me, I’m sure he’ll think of it for himself.”

“Just as you wish,” said Theodorus.

“It’s that girl,” said Anna Cornelia to herself. “Now I understand what was wrong with his letters.”